Hasta La Creative!

Via ScampBlog comes this spot from Fallon’s UK office for Budweiser. The one thing that jumps out immediately is that it’s a :60 (when was the last time you saw a :60 in the US that wasn’t a launch spot for a major brand.)

The second is that it’s another in a line of UK TV spots that fetishize the rural American South (Levi’s UK advertising did a good job of this.) Not criticizing, but it’s always fascinating to see an outsider’s take on something uniquely American. To the Brits, the rural South is uniquely and authentically American.

Third is there’s no product sell. It’s a nice minute-long movie about a band that uses instruments made of Budweiser bottles. No lovingly lit pour shots, no hot chicks in bikinis and all the other clichés of American beer advertising. Shot by Harmony Korine, a noted avant-garde movie director best know for his debut film Kids, my only question here is what role did the agency actually play? Did they come to Korine with the idea “rural Southern band plays with instruments made from Budweiser bottles. Go.” Or did they have the basic action plotted out and Korine just added detail, tone and style? I sort of hope it’s the former.

For although many creative purists will look down on an agency for engaging a director at that stage, one of the biggest lessons we have to learn from the digital age is that it can’t always be about the copywriter and art director team anymore. That we need to engage and involve other people– be they technologists, user experience experts or film directors– early on and collaborate with them fully. The result can be something as charming as the spot above.

Right on the front page. And in an obituary no less. The title of the obit “William F. Buckley Jr., 82, Dies; Sesquipedalian Spark of Right” is (for those of you not in the U.S. and/or old enough to remember him) a play on the fact that Buckley was fond of using words like “sesquipedalian” in his speeches and his columns. He definitely kept Webster’s in business.

I mean I don’t know about you, but I had no idea what ”sesquipedalian” meant – my basic knowledge of Latin got me to “150 footed” (sesqui=150 + pedalian = feet or footed) which clearly was wrong.Dictionary.com to the rescue: Sesquipedalian means “given to using long words” and is derived from some term meaning “words of a foot and a half long” (so I was on the right track. Sort of.)

Regardless, it’s nice to see the Times loosen up a little bit and employ some intellectual humor when appropriate. It’s a lesson many corporate and B2B advertisers should heed, because as an old mentor of mine once said: “Just because people are reading about work, doesn’t mean they want to be bored.” 

And besides, we all just learned a new insult today.